


Again

by butbythegrace



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Asphyxiation, Bad Manners, Details of automail attachment, Ed won't let him, Excessive Angst, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I use this term loosely because Ed is not playing, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Izumi's questionable training methods, M/M, Pain, Punishment, Roy tries to be a good partner, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Spanking, Winry throws things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 02:45:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14991068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butbythegrace/pseuds/butbythegrace
Summary: Ed doesn’t need to find comfort among monsters. He needs to be treated like one.





	Again

**Author's Note:**

> This bug bit me and I wrote it in two days. I would say I'm sorry but I'm not.
> 
> [pf](https://www.pillowfort.io/butbythegrace) | [tw](https://twitter.com/butbythegrace1)

 

 

 

_Again._

Teacher’s voice is as sharp and cutting as her strikes. Ed hardly has the chance to recover before she’s on him anew and he’s starting to understand. The body must be strong and the brain even stronger to overcome it, to think and strategize above the noise of pain and the fight-or-flight impulse. The worst is when he doesn’t even get the chance to breathe, her hits in quick succession, like the first opens him up and the second reaches in to wound his very core.

But Ed needs this. He needs to be beaten and broken because it’s like hammering a sword out of a shapeless lump of steel. He needs to prove to her that he’s worth it, and so he will pay the price to get there. That’s how the world works.

He stands. He falls. He stands again.

 

 

 

When he and Al visit Granny and Winry the next summer they’re both covered in bruises. They ignore the nervous look of the ticket attendant during the station exchange and the whispers of the people on the train. Granny doesn’t ask because she knows that nothing she has to say of it will matter. But Winry is visibly upset, eyeing the marks over dinner and stumbling distractedly through conversation.

When Granny steps out with Den the next day, Winry accosts them while they read at the kitchen table. She's still unnerved and looks at the floor, not at them.

“Why do you let her do this?” she asks.

Ed doesn’t look up from his book and stays stubbornly silent.

Al lowers his. “It’s what we have to do,” he tells her. His simple reply isn’t good enough.

“No, you don’t,” Winry says, her voice shaking. “You chose this and you _don’t_ have to.”

Ed lowers his book too, annoyed. “Yes, we do,” he insists. Winry doesn’t know _anything_. “She won’t teach us alchemy if we don’t train our bodies.”

Winry looks up. Her eyes are glassy but angry, her cheeks red. “Have you _seen_ yourselves? Why is alchemy _this_ important?”

Neither he nor Al look at her now because they sure as hell aren’t going to tell her why.

She takes a deep breath and sets her jaw. “This isn’t training, this is _abuse_ -”

Ed is in her face before his book hits the floor. Al is there too, clinging to his right arm. He and Winry both look worried, bordering on fearful. It isn’t like Ed’s going to _hit_ her. He isn’t, because that’s wrong, he knows the difference between _that_ and training. But he needs to get his point across and this is the best way he knows.

“Don't _ever_ accuse her of that again,” is all he says. He yanks his arm out of Al’s grip and stomps out of the house.

He and Winry don’t speak for the rest of the visit. She cries when they say goodbye.

 

 

After the transmutation, Ed would give anything for one of Teacher’s lessons. Her fist connecting to his bone, her elbow cutting his muscle, her foot sweeping him into the cold hard ground.

Winry blames Teacher more than she blames him and Al. Ed knows he wouldn't have survived his wounds without the training that hardened him beyond typical resilience. He tells Winry to fuck off and go read a book, and it makes her cry. He hears Al in the hallway trying to soothe her, saying the responsibility is theirs and theirs alone. Ed disagrees. It is all his.

_How could he have been so stupid?_

He disobeyed his teacher and the law and nearly got his baby brother _killed_. Instead he sentenced him to an unfeeling steel prison and can’t even _dream_ of figuring out how to fix him.

Double amputation isn’t enough. Bandage changes aren’t enough. Nothing makes him feel like he sacrificed equally. It's at this point that a resolve settles in him. Somehow he will pay a fair price.

Even though Winry isn't talking to him, she and Granny both look at him with pity, but he isn’t anything to pity, he’s a sinner, and if it weren’t for Al he would readily spend the rest of his life stuck in this wheelchair as a reminder.

Hope and purpose come in the form of Roy Mustang, who makes Ed an offer he has no business refusing and doesn’t look at him like he’s something to feel sorry for. It’s a relief that people can still look at him like that, even if Mustang doesn’t look at him like he’s a monster, either.

Ed screams and sobs during the automail surgery but he doesn’t shed a tear. If he was weaker he might have wondered why they made him heal when they were just going to open him up again, but he isn’t, and he doesn’t. He whips his head around to throw the cold washcloth from his eyes and watches them delicately dissect free the major nerves of his shoulder even though Granny tells him to _stop, stop it, why are you doing this to yourself, Edward STOP IT_ \- while Winry tilts her head back to keep her tears from dripping onto the sterile field.

They force him to have a morphine IV but it barely takes the edge off. All he sees are glimmering stars on a white-hot background as they solder and screw the implant to his bone.

When the arm port is done they want to stop, they want him to take a day to recuperate, but _no_. He caused this. He will pay the price.

They insist, Granny starts to clean him while Winry packs away the instruments, until his panic is full-blown and his vitals edge into dangerous zones. They can’t hold him down and he screams at them until he feels like coughing up blood.

Granny and Winry give each other looks of worry, uncertainty. But they reopen the surgical field and comply.

This time they strap the washcloth over his eyes. He stealthily clamps the morphine drip shut in retaliation and _screams._

 

 

Ed quickly realizes there is something different about Mustang because everyone else still looks at him with sorrow in their eyes, or worse, tries to point out how he's just like them.

Ed is not like them. He doesn’t need to find comradery in other monsters.

But Mustang is different. Ed doesn’t understand why, but he doesn’t have time to figure it out.

Teacher taught him how to manage pain but not where to find it. He looks for it in the only place he knows will provide unconditionally and throws himself head first into danger. Everyone tells him to stop being so reckless. He wishes he could, because if he dies then what will Al do? But the pain and fear bring a certain kind of reprieve he can’t give up. If he's lucky enough, his brain will overcome it all and figure out a way to mend a fraction of the mess he made.

Winry screams as she swings and throws various tools of her trade when he gets hurt or worse, busts up _her_ automail, and maybe in his screwed up brain it should be gratifying but it only serves to piss him off. He thinks back to when she accused Teacher of abuse and seethes at her hypocrisy. What the hell does she call the bruises from _her_ wrenches, then? At least Teacher’s lessons keep him alive.

Winry still insists that he doesn’t need to do this. She still doesn’t know anything.

 

 

It turns out Mustang is more than a puzzle, he’s a problem. He’s been a problem ever since Ed reached puberty and the stupid sex hormones hit him so hard he wishes the metaphorical freight train was a real one. It’s just chemistry, he tells himself. His body is going haywire while it tries to balance itself out and Mustang’s pheromones just so happen to fit in his scrambled brain receptors like a key in a lock.

But even if by some miracle Mustang looked past his age and countless other irredeemable qualities and returned the interest, Ed likely wouldn't have him. And not just because Mustang is an aggravatingly cocky bastard who needs a fist in his face, or because he’s an idiot, even though he is but not in the way that Ed needs him to be, as much as he hates to admit it. The man’s mind is on par with his own. He's also a level of exquisite no person should be, the epitome of suave and grace who treats his love interests like royalty and Ed doesn’t deserve _any_ of that.

Even when Ed sees Mustang's impeccably smooth surface crack during their battle assessment, sees the despair and disease swimming underneath and finds that they are so much the same, he still won’t consider it. He doesn’t need someone to understand, to empathize, to distract. He doesn’t need to find comfort among monsters. He needs to be treated like one.

 

 

Ed is sixteen, sexually frustrated, and as guilt-ridden and self-deprecating as ever when the colonel sends Al out of the office with some bullshit excuse about military matters. He stands in front of his desk, loosely clasping his hands in front of his legs while Ed stands next to the couch with his arms crossed and pointedly refuses to look at him.

“Why are you doing this, Edward?” Mustang asks. Ed’s body thrills traitorously at his name wrapped in that voice.

It’s not the first time he’s been asked, and it’s not the first time he won’t offer an answer. It really does look worse than it is. He has some stitches on his chest and back, a split lip and a purple bruise on his cheekbone. He can argue all he wants that it was unavoidable and even though the others simply write him off headstrong, Mustang knows better.

“Are you trying to punish yourself?” Mustang asks.

It hits so close that Ed can’t stop the widening of his eyes or hitching of his breath. Not even his own _brother_ can see it. But Mustang does. Ed wonders what else he sees, with eyes as dark as the hands of the Gate, and why he can’t figure out what they’re saying.

Something else unreadable passes over Mustang’s face, darkens it. “There are better ways to cope,” he says.

Ed bristles. What the fuck does this bastard know? “Like drinking?” he snaps, hoping it feels like a barb under the colonel's fingernail because he's getting a little too close.

At first it's a metaphorical close but then suddenly Mustang is just inches away and pursues Ed as he skitters a few steps back. The older man's jaw is clenched like he’s trying to stop himself from doing something.

So Ed cracks and does it for him. He snags Mustang’s collar and crashes their mouths together. He’s got nothing to lose. The worst Mustang will do is punch him and Ed is sick and a monster so he welcomes that possibility.

But after a moment of shocked stillness he kisses Ed back, which isn’t bad either because he’s aggressive and he bites. It’s an immediate struggle for power that with size and experience Mustang easily wins. He grabs Ed by the shoulders of his coat and slams him into the wall. Ed snarls against his mouth and starts to raise a knee but is blocked by the other man’s hip and then halted entirely by a hand on his throat. It presses against him in tandem with Mustang’s mouth.

Oh.

Ed stops fighting. He goes lax, melts around that hand and his eyes nearly slide closed, but he can’t help but take in the sight of the colonel’s arm extended and disappearing under his chin.

His involuntary, wheezing inhale startles them both back to reality. Up this close he can tell Mustang’s eyes are not black or brown, they’re _blue_ , like the dark of a dawning sky, the blown pupils constricting as he starts to pull away. Those eyes are wide, the brow above them furrowed, the lips below kissed red. Mustang's lower lip is dark and shining and it takes Ed a second to realize the split in his lip reopened and it's his blood.

“I’m sorry, I-” Mustang says, and for only the second time since Ed has known him does Mustang look vulnerable.

Ed doesn’t reply, just holds fast to the hand encircling his throat.

At first Mustang looks confused, but when realization dawns, his eyes are even wider and something like pain flits through them.

“We can’t,” he says, forcefully removing Ed’s hand and lowering his own, then letting Ed go completely and he wants to scream in frustration. He was _so close_ to some semblance of what he's been searching for-

But what Mustang says next isn’t “you’re too young” or “you’re my subordinate” it’s “this is not the time or place”.

Ed leaves the office shaking and tonguing the tender flesh of his lip. The colonel’s address is scribbled on a piece of paper stuffed deep in his pocket.

 

 

Mustang tells him to pick a safe word, which Ed thinks is stupid, and he tells him so.

“This is important,” Mustang replies, flexing his fingers, making Ed’s mouth run a little dry. He agrees to ‘red’ even though he still doesn’t care and knows he’ll never use it.

Mustang tries to talk to him about limits. Ed asks if this is the part where he tells him just how he likes to be fucked up. The colonel looks to the ceiling, closes his eyes, and swallows. Ed almost tells him to say a prayer, but really, there's no saving either of them.

Ed is hoping the colonel is going to knock him around but finds that it isn’t like that. Instead it’s him, with his clothes still on, bent over the colonel’s lap, and he discovers that humiliation is just as good as fear before Mustang even puts his hands on him. Ed squirms in anticipation and the older man’s breath hitches, his bare hand smoothing down Ed’s spine and over his backside.

“Ready?” the colonel asks.

“Yes,” Ed answers, voice rough and strained.

The first time Mustang hits him is a surprise in the _relief_ it brings. It stings and sings through his body, makes him gasp and grip the bed sheet. It leaves him able to breathe without a weight crushing his chest and neutralizes the poison in his blood in a way that pain from surgery and fittings and missions haven't been able to.

The feeling is gone as quickly as it comes, leaving Ed bewildered and intrigued. The scientist in him wants to ask why. The monster just wants more.

“Alright?” Mustang asks, stroking Ed’s leather-clad ass where the skin beneath is going to turn pink and hopefully by the end, purple.

“Again,” Ed breathes.

Mustang warms him up layer by layer as he strips him down. His bare hand evolves, donning a leather glove, wielding a wooden paddle brush and a belt. Ed never says red.

They don’t fuck the first time, or the second, because that’s not what Ed is there for. But it’s the third time, when Mustang tries again to make sure he’s okay post-session – something about aftercare and sappy bullshit that Ed definitely _does not_ need – that makes him cave. He hopes sex will be enough to distract Mustang from treating him like some fragile thing playing a game. It’s not a game. It’s on the base level of his hierarchy of needs: water, oxygen, pain. Specifically, Mustang’s hand turning his ass and thighs purple and red, because at least this way, with this pain, Ed knows he won’t die in the process.

Still, he does his best to keep the line distinct. If he’s going to let the object of his brain chemistry’s affections fuck him, he won't have it how he really wants it. He will always take it on his belly, entice the colonel to leave bruises on his hips and the back of his neck and a limp in his step, and leave right after.

He starts to think that maybe he should have taken the limit thing a little more seriously because the colonel keeps trying to get mouthy, and not in the snarky way either, at least _that_ Ed could handle. He's handsy too, careful touches that speak far too much of compassion for Ed to tolerate them. At least once a session Ed has to swat the man's face or hands away because there's no room for that shit while he's trying to repent or whatever the fuck he's doing when he drowns and dwells on this pain. The bloody kiss in the office that started it all remains the only one they’ve shared and he keeps hoping Mustang will let it die.

Sometimes, while Ed is gathering his clothes, Mustang looks at him in that way that Ed still can’t read. At this point, he just doesn’t want to know.

Al understands, to a degree. He understands his brother is a pent-up teenager so unlike his peers in that he may have already lived twice. He understands Ed has trust issues and no other outlet. And he probably understands it hadn’t been the colonel who instigated the relationship. If it can even be called that.

He also doesn’t ask too many questions and for that, Ed is grateful.

 

 

Roy is careful when he chokes him, and not because he’ll leave bruises if he isn’t. Ed stalks around headquarters with three layers and a high collar in the middle of summer, so it’s not like anyone will see. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t ask. And even if they did, Ed’s teeth and other sharp edges would keep them at bay.

No, Roy is careful because he knows Ed will never tap out.

He’s on his back in his underwear, trying to pretend he isn't as turned on as he really is, pressing his throat into Roy’s hand, trying to tell him _harder_. The hand always retreats right when he starts to see stars. Roy must know what his face looks like during the transition. It’s an alluring, frustrating edge.

After a few moments his vision clears and the hand returns. Tightens. Ed squeezes his eyes shut and revels in the blood pounding in his ears. His toes and fingers tingle, and he arches his neck up again. It’s hard to breathe but not impossible. He digs his fists and heels into the sheets, a whine crawling up his throat.

_Just…a bit…more…_

His eyes fly open when he feels lips on his chest, teeth on his collarbone. _No_. That is not how this works. He really should have said something by now and it's his fault but suddenly he's not just irritated, he's absolutely irate. Not even at Mustang. It's always at himself.

He knows it’s wrong, that what they do takes a certain level of trust to accomplish, but he grabs Mustang’s wrist with the automail and crushes his hand to his throat, effectively breaking the gentle contact of Mustang’s mouth. It makes the man snarl and struggle, but Ed doesn’t let up. He presses even harder. Mustang starts yelling but Ed can’t hear him over the roar of pressure in his ears, and only when his vision starts to fade does it weaken him enough for Mustang to wrench his hand away. Their chests heave as they gasp for air; same situation, different reasons. Ed is so dizzy he can barely process the look of hurt and betrayal on Mustang’s face.

The consequential leather belt across the front of his thighs cuts and stings and Mustang doesn’t stop until the bruises start to show. He carries through with the aftercare Ed despises, spreading lotion over his welts and marks with the hand bruised by the automail. Ed decides that after that stunt it’s the least he can allow and numbly watches the colonel work.

After Ed dresses and goes to leave, Mustang grabs him by the collar, nearly lifting him off the floor. “Don’t _ever_ do _anything_ like that again,” he hisses. He doesn’t say goodbye. Just slams the door behind Ed, who doesn’t sleep that night because what he did didn't soothe the monster, it stirred it up.

Roy doesn’t let Ed back into his bed until after a mission where Ed is stabbed, a neat little jab to the abdomen that narrowly misses his spleen. He’s probably lucky to be welcomed back at all. He doesn’t dwell on the why.

Roy rarely chokes him anymore. And when he does, he cuffs Ed’s hands to the bed.

 

 

Teacher is furious and disgusted and Ed can feel it with every hit. She nearly breaks his nose and likely cracks his ribs. He can barely see through the water in his eyes and breathe through the blood, the pain in his chest. But he needed this. He needed it so badly.

It’s one of the few times he’s thankful Al can’t physically hurt, because Al doesn’t deserve to. Teacher disagrees. She considers them equal. Ed thinks it might hurt her more to deal punishment to steel and he wonders if she is like him, too.

But then. Then, while he waits, serene and closed-eyed for the next blow, she _hugs_ him, and Al. And only when he starts to cry does he wonder if he needs that too, if only to keep himself from falling apart long enough to fix what he’d done to his little brother, who cries tearlessly along with him in her embrace.

Even though Ed needed her judgement and it soothes a part of him not even Roy could touch, it still isn’t enough. He wants to demand again, again, _again_ , just as she had countless times. But he is the student. A disgrace of one. And he doesn’t have the right to ask anything of her. She's dealt more severe lessons for less and he hopes she will do the same now.

Instead she denounces them and effectively severs any hope that he could convince her he deserves more.

He learns about the baby. He learns about her suffering. He learns his theory is correct and his brain gets stuck on the feeling of her arms wrapped around him. The look in her eyes when they leave is so much like Roy’s that it makes Ed feel sick. When he and Al return to Central it’s all that keeps him from asking Roy to finish what she started.

 

 

Something in Ed has shifted. He can’t name it, can’t describe it, but he can _feel_ it. He still feels guilt, hates himself, and finds solace in his aches, so it's not that he's changed. Everything has just...moved over, somehow. He can't come up with an answer. He spends a week healing and wondering if Teacher’s lesson knocked a screw lose, or worse, that a full body beating is what he really needs because there's not a chance he could convince Roy to do it.

Al understands too much. He tells Ed it's okay, which doesn't help, it just pisses him off, because there's no way in hell he's going to ask Al _what's_ okay and admit Al knows more than he does.

Thankfully, when the soreness from Teacher fades and his skin starts to itch, Roy doesn't seem to notice whatever it is that has Ed so unsettled and Al so all-knowing.

“How are you doing?” Roy murmurs, running a soft hand down Ed’s back, making him shiver. Down one ass cheek, then up the other, and through his touch Ed can feel the raised lines of welts on his skin.

He wonders why Roy has stopped to ask, but then realizes he is shaking. His breathing is shallow and gasping.

His body shudders.

“Again,” he grits.

When it's nearing time to wind down and Roy's hand rains against him in quick succession - cracking the surface, reaching in, thrashing the monster into temporary submission - Ed sobs and grinds his aching dick into the colonel's lap. It's his stupid brain again. Wires have crossed and he now associates the combination of Roy and pain with sex. He's probably dripping all over Roy's military issue pants and that thought just makes it worse. But it feels so good to feel unburdened, normal, human.

Roy fucks him on all fours, slow and deep and far too gently for Ed’s taste, but between the lingering sensitivity from Teacher’s beating and his current endorphin high, he’s just too far gone to do anything about it. Roy seems to pick up on this, maybe he really _had_ noticed from the beginning, and his equally gentle hands start to wander. Greedy bastard.

Ed fights to keep his concentration on being fucked and how Roy’s hips hit and rub against the welts on his ass. But Roy makes it difficult to stay there. He strokes the pads of his fingers down Ed’s spine, puts his lips to his shoulder and neck. Ed tries to leverage it by snapping his hips back, seeking the burn, but Roy is an asshole and angles his own hips just up and out of reach. It gives Ed enough to ride but not enough to hurt. He grips the sheets, bucks and growls, tries his hardest to get there but he's already _so_ tired and it doesn't take long for his muscles to fail to do anything other than hold him up. He considers sending an elbow up into Roy's ribs. Instead he slams a hand to the mattress and keens, long and low and frustrated.

Roy isn't a complete asshole though, he grabs Ed's ass and squeezes, and it's just enough for Ed to settle, head hanging between his shaking arms as he pants and grinds his sore skin against Roy's touch.

Roy sinks back into him completely and resumes his rhythm. One of his hands snakes around Ed’s waist, brushes over his abs, wraps around his dick and starts stroking him in time with the thrusts. He's breaking so many of Ed’s unspoken rules but he can’t find it within himself to care enough to tell Roy to stop. The resolve he set over six years ago breaks. For the first time he sees white that is unconnected to pain, and he comes sobbing while Roy places bruising open-mouthed kisses to the back of his rib cage.

After they catch their breath and Roy pulls out, he tries to draw Ed close to him. It snaps Ed out of his daze. He slips away to the bathroom, as he always does. But this time it isn’t to inspect his marks in the mirror, it's to splash his face with cold water and grip the edges of the sink so hard he shakes. He wants to throw up. He hadn’t…he hadn’t done _anything_ to warrant this, to have something _he_ wanted, to feel _good_. He isn’t supposed to feel like this while his little brother sits alone and hollow and unable to sleep.

His brain has always been a traitor and Al's voice echoes there as if he were with him. _It's okay, Brother._

He freezes as it clicks. He slowly looks up into the mirror and with a start, recognizes the look in his eyes.

The lights flicker on and connections map themselves out. It's not the punishment Teacher dealt that sparked the beginning of this shift in him, but the lesson that had come after _._ He's stunned and queasy and the last six years of his life stare back at him from within his reflection. He wonders how much of him was fucked from the beginning, and how much was through his own doing. He wonders what he's done to Roy, who tries his best to be what he needs despite the fact that Ed is a complete fucking mess. He has to stop himself before he starts to consider equivalent exchange. He's not sure he can handle it right now.

There's surprise on Roy’s face when Ed passes over his discarded clothes and steps onto the mattress with his knees. He pauses there at the edge, unsure if he is welcome. Roy pulls back the cover and lays his arm open. Ed feels stiff and awkward as he tucks himself into Roy’s side, but at the same time something blooms in the darkness inside of him.

Ed needs him. Roy needs this.

And maybe Ed doesn’t deserve it, but he needs this, too.

 

 

His ass and thighs are bruises upon bruises. He lets Roy fuck him on his back and finds it's the best way to experience a hand around his throat.

When he comes back from the bathroom, he hesitates over his clothes. Roy slings his arm around the bed space next to him and tilts his head. He asks a silent question with the word Ed always uses as a demand. The look in his eyes is the same at its base structure, but has evolved.

Ed shivers and steps gingerly over his clothes, his skin whispering against Roy’s in answering agreeance. His body prickles and burns and Roy touches him, soft and soothing. Ed breathes and closes his eyes and is starting to understand. _It's okay_.

 

 


End file.
